A continuation of CKUW's morning radio show 'Better Than Chocolate' (voted People's Choice for Favourite Spoken Word Show in 2008) in which you'll find news about Winnipeg events.
Have a great day. How can you miss - you're in Winnipeg!

Tickets to this special speaking event are $10 and are available at McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park in person or by calling 475-0483.

In this exciting and revealing personal inquiry, former governor general Adrienne Clarkson explores the immigrant experience through the people who have transformed Canada.

The Canadians she befriends illustrate the changing idea of what it means to be Canadian and the kind of country we have created over the decades.

Like her, many of the people who came did not have a real choice: they often arrived friendless and with a sense of loss. Yet their struggles and successes have enriched Canada immeasurably.

What drove them to become the kind of people they have become?

What would have happened to them if Canada had not taken them in?

What have they added to our national life us as we go forward in the new century?

Written with humour, insight and personal revelation, Room for All of Us is a tale of many destinies. Like W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants, Clarkson’s book offers a richly textured, intimate and unforgettable portrait of a changing country and its people.

Art and cultural writer Lucy Lippard opens her book The Lure of the Local with the following definition: “Place for me is the locus of desire”. In this sense, a place is not definitive but rather it can be constituted variably from a myriad of different perspectives. This lecture will explore the place of wilderness as a subject of contemporary art, exemplified through displays of desire in land as a means to observe the power of imagination and images in the creation of our environments.

Suzanne Morrissette is an artist, a curator and a writer. In July 2011 Morrissette received Canada Council Assistance to Aboriginal Curators for Residencies in the Visual Arts funding to complete a two year Curatorial Residency with the Thunder Bay Art Gallery.

(b. 1919) each played a significant role in advancing the recognition of Aboriginal art in Canada. The focus of this talk will be the role of each artist within history:

Daphne Odjig and the “Indian Group of Seven” in Winnipeg

Doreen Jensen and the formation of the Society of Canadian Artists of Native Ancestry

Joane Cardinal-Schubert and a new generation of Aboriginal artists in Canada.

Lee-Ann Martin is the Curator of Contemporary Canadian Aboriginal Art at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec and is the former Head Curator of the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina. Her writing has been widely published. Martin’s recent curatorial projects include Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years for Plug In ICA in Winnipeg and the nationally touring exhibition, Bob Boyer: His Life’s Work, for the MacKenzie Art Gallery.

October 28, 2011

Howard Pawley, former Premier of Manitoba and Associate Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Windsor, will be at BookFest Windsor.

Mr. Pawley will talk about his 19 years in politics, particularly the years from 1981 through 1988 when he served as Premier of Manitoba, and also recount stories from his recent book, Keep True: A Life in Politics.

Laura Lush will be reading and signing her newly released poetry collection, Carapace.

At times, these poems are told through the eyes of a new mother as she attempts to balance the complex and often conflicting emotions that accompany motherhood:

joy, anger, uncertainty, awe and fear. At other times, they are told through the eyes

of a bereft narrator as she comes to grip with death and loss.

Ariel Gordon will also be reading from her poetry collection Hump, which recently won the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry. Hump is a mash-up of pregnancy-and-mothering poems that functions as an anti-sentiment manifesto. Month by month, stanza by stanza, Gordon attempts to adequately represent the wonder and devilment of being-with-child.

Arrested at age sixteen in Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran, Marina Nemat was imprisoned in Teheran’s notorious Evin prison for two years.

She emigrated to Canada in 1991 and lives with her husband and two sons near Toronto. In this book, Nemat provides a riveting account of her escape and her journey to Canada, via Hungary, with her family.

Settling into a new life as immigrants, she and her husband seemingly adapt.

But inwardly, Nemat is struggling.

Haunted by survivor’s guilt, she feels compelled to speak out about what had happened. Her account becomes a bestselling book; and again her life is changed.

A story of courage and recovery, After Tehran chronicles Nemat’s confrontation with her past, how she re-engages with her distant father, and how ultimately she emerges from the emotional ravages of posttraumatic stress.

Nigel Bart, the Artbeat Studio founder and facilitator and special guests will speak.

Arrive early- the Barthouse Band will perform traditional fiddle tunes prior to the program.

Artbeat Studio Inc. is a community-based, peer-directed program that provides social supports, working art studio/gallery space and mentorship for individuals living with mental illness, for the purpose of recovery and empowerment.

The Studio is committed to decreasing stigma and discrimination through positive action, mental health education and advocacy.

After the release of Key In Lock, Rona Altrows's most recent collection of short stories, one reviewer said, "Rona Altrows is the first author since Chabon who repays a second read. Damn, she's good." Her previous book, A Run On Hose, won the City of Calgary

W.O. Mitchell Book Prize.

Rita Bozi is co-author of the Fringe hit play 52 Pick Up performed in 5 countries by over

15 theatre companies. Her travel essays have been published in FFWD Weekly. She is currently working on a collection of short stories called Hungry, High and Hammered.

She is also writing Uprising, a novel chronicling her father’s escape from Hungary during the 1956 Revolution.

Ken Cameron's hit play Harvest was recently published in Harvest and Other Plays.

Bob Clark of the Calgary Herald called Harvest, “comic gold". His newest project commissioned by the Blyth Festival is a musical about farming, cars and sleeping around.

Tyler Perry is a junior high teacher whose first book of poetry, Lessons in Falling, was called “masterful” by FFWD Weekly. “Perry doesn’t preach or pontificate, but rather reminds readers of a place they’ve been before, perhaps forgotten, but that nonetheless affects them in profound and often unconscious ways.”

Rea Tarvydas is a writer who has just completed her first collection of interconnected short stories called The Globe, two of which have been published in The New Quarterly and The Fiddlehead.

October 26, 2011

Inspired by the life and work of her great-great-grandmother - Dr. Sarah Fonda Mackintosh, a pioneer in women’s and children’s health care in nineteenth-century New York - Ami McKay’s The Virgin Cure, is set in Victorian New York in the year 1871.

As a crowded, sweltering summer of riots and poverty comes to a close, twelve-year-old Moth’s journey is just beginning. Sold away by her mother, Moth is befriended by a young pickpocket.

This meeting begins Moth’s journey along a twisted, strange and dangerous path.

From a dime museum of anatomical wonders, to a dance hall populated by child prostitutes, to an apothecary shop where a magical pear tree once stood, Moth must rely on the lessons she learns from Dr. Sadie Fonda and the streets to make things right.

Ami McKay’s debut novel, The Birth House, was a #1 bestseller in Canada, winner of three CBA Libris Awards, nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, a finalist for CBC Canada Reads, and a book club favourite around the world.

Born and raised in Indiana, Ami now lives with her husband and two sons in Nova Scotia.

The first event in the series features 2011 winner Ariel Gordon and her guests: actor/Theatre by the River major domo Matthew TenBruggencate, poet Jennifer Still and designer/chapbook collaborator Julia Michaud.

Along with our special free daily events, featuring characters such as Wonder Woman, Emma Frost and Harley Quinn, we will also have a table in Artists' Alley, where you can check out photo prints, info on Drawn and Plastered, special convention merchandise from our sponsors... and last but not least, the debut of our very own event merchandise!

October 19, 2011

Get inside the symphony orchestra with this absorbing and entertaining course!

Don Anderson discusses the history, design and repertoire of all the major orchestral instruments, and plays recordings that demonstrate their personalities. Artists of the WSO visit to demonstrate the instruments they play, discuss their careers, and answer questions.

October 18, 2011

The project attracted heaps of passers-by during Nuit Blanche and Culture Days , and continues to do so everyday. The installations are quite awesome!!

As long as the spaces remain unoccupied, the plan is to rotate installations

at least twice a year.

There will always be a new rotation for Culture Days and then another throughout the year. Maybe more rotations, but this is up to the Exchange BIZ. The BIZ will continue searching for property owners in the Exchange to participate in the initiative, and will likely be doing more drives for applications from artists and curators.

Please join us on Sunday, October 30, from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm for some Halloween fun!

Please come dressed up in costume and trick or treat with us in the barnyard. There will be a wonderful prize for the person that looks most like one of our animals.

Bring your appetite with you, as there will be delicious food from "Southern Fried Vegan," pizza from "Tomato Joe's," refreshing drinks and cupcakes from "Bake You Happy" and delicious homemade cookies.

October 16, 2011

National Novel Writing Month is a nonprofit literary crusade that encourages aspiring novelists all over the world to write a 50,000-word novel in a month.

At midnight on Nov. 1, writers from over 90 countries, poised over laptops and pads of paper, fingers itching and minds racing with plots and characters, will begin a furious adventure in fiction.

By 11:59 pm on Nov. 30, tens of thousands of them will be novelists.

NaNoWriMo is the largest writing contest in the world. In 2008, over 120,000 people took part in the free challenge. While the event stresses fun and creative exploration over publication, more than 30 novelists have had their NaNo-novels published, including Sarah Gruen, whose New York Times #1 Best Seller, Water for Elephants began as a NaNoWriMo novel.

Around 18% of participants “win” every year by writing 50,000 words and validating their novels on the organization’s website.

Winners receive no prizes, and no one at NaNoWriMo ever reads the manuscripts submitted. So, if not for fame or fortune, why do people do it?

Help us kick-off the 2011 Manitoba CD/CED Gathering at the Manitoba premiere screening of The Economics of Happiness, a remarkable documentary by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Steven Gorelick and John Page, about the power of going local.

No registration is needed for this event, but rush seating will be in effect.

*Doors open at 7:00 pm*

CCEDNet is a member-led organization committed to strengthening communities by creating economic opportunities that improve environmental and social conditions.

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Welcome to Winnipeg!

While I was born in Malta, raised in NY and lived in BC, Winnipeg is home.
I've co-hosted an award winning radio show.
I've been published in newspapers and literary anthologies and my plays have been produced.